


When is a Man No Longer a Man?

by Darksidekelz



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 22:54:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14482989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darksidekelz/pseuds/Darksidekelz
Summary: Gabriel Reyes can feel himself fading, can feel something unnatural, something evil growing inside of him, and he's afraid.





	When is a Man No Longer a Man?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Overwatch fic, so I'm a little nervous. Not entirely sure where it'll end up, but I suppose we'll find out.
> 
> Probably gonna be contradicted by canon at some point, but I got so excited by Retribution that I had to write something for these losers.
> 
> Tags and rating may be prone to change as time goes on.

“What the fuck have you done to me?!”  

A soft groan escaped Moira as he slammed her against the wall, raising her several inches from the ground.  She squirmed a little in discomfort, but remained her usual unperturbed self, even in the face of such an assault.  When she spoke, her voice was calm.

“Is there a problem, Commander?”

There was, though in his current state of wild, uncontrollable rage, Gabriel couldn’t well dictate just what it was.  Still, the contrast of Moira’s ordinary, almost bored words, contrasted with his own raw fury just enough to bring him back to his senses, or at least to the point that he was able to release his sharp hold on his subordinate.  He backed away with as much dignity as he could force, but the damage had been done. Moira’s question had been - what - some kind of sick joke? She knew full-well that something was wrong, his actions could not have possibly made that any clearer.  The real question was just how much she knew about his current predicament.

He’d been playing the role of guinea pig to Dr. O’Deorain’s more under the table experiments for years now, and by and large, both of them had been pleased with the results.  Gabriel felt stronger than ever - capable of inhuman feats that even Jack couldn’t match (and would be appalled to learn about). The ability to shed physical form at will had come to him slowly - first a finger, an arm, a leg.  It was only recently that he’d become capable of taking up this ‘Wraith Form’ completely, and still, he hadn’t felt any major changes come over him, perhaps a little alarm, but nothing worth worrying over.

Until today.

It had been a routine assassination - small scale - not a disaster like Venice, just him and Jesse.  Gabriel had performed dozens of these over the years, there was nothing to set this apart, save for his decision to shadow step into the informant’s office to save time while Jesse dealt with security.  And then, once in that dank office, filled with the smell of mold and cigarette smoke, his body nothing more than a vague collection of nanites, held together through sheer force of will, something came over him.

It was as though his mind had vacated the premises, leaving him at the whim of orders and emotion, of an unquenchable desire to kill.  The target hadn’t stood a chance - ripped apart from the inside out, as Gabriel - no - the monster that he’d become, forced its way through the informant, drained the man’s life force, his soul, left him a shriveled, bloody husk.  Jesse had walked in at some point, his face blanched in horror, his gun drawn, aimed at an abomination that was past his recognition.

‘Inhuman,’ was the word he’d used when he described what he’d seen later, when Gabriel had come back to his senses, disoriented, horrified.  What had he done?

It wasn’t just that mission either.  He hadn’t paid it any mind before, but after today, he could no longer ignore what had been dismissed as random mood swings, or tricks of his broken brain.  For a long time, he’d felt it - an anger welling up inside of him, an increasingly short fuse, a need for violence - today’s mission had simply been the inevitable end of the path he’d placed himself on, that he had allowed Dr. O’Deorain to place him on.  

No, not the end.  

He could still feel it, something dark deep within the depths of his soul, something he couldn’t quite describe, driving him to kill, or worse.

_ God, what is happening to me? _

“What do you think?” he hissed at last.  The urge to strike her again, to tear apart her body, to rip out her still-beating heart was powerful; he shivered, trying to keep his gaze focused on his hands, the wall, anything but the living human before him.  Even she didn’t deserve such a fate.

“How are you feeling, Commander?” she said.  Despite the calm in her voice before, the question seemed shaken.  Perhaps she was not so unflappable as she liked to come off.

“I don’t know,” he snapped.  “Angry? Murderous? Inhuman?  You tell me how I’m feeling, ‘cause I sure as shit don’t know.”

“Hmm,” she sighed, and moved away, to rifle through some drawers.  What was she doing? “The changes in mood are not surprising, but this does seem a bit . . . extreme.”

“No shit.”  He tried to keep his voice calm, really he did, but his voice wasn’t working with him.

Moira paused for a long moment; her pen scratching away at the notebook she’d apparently pulled out.  The noise did nothing to sooth Gabriel’s flaring temper; the reminder of his nature as a genetic experiment made him feel all the more inhuman.  His hands grabbed at his head, digging his fingers into his scalp, wishing for all the world he could tear himself apart then and there.

_ Were those claws? _

Before he could investigate the sudden sharpness of his digits, Moira was back before him, closer than he would have liked, and looking him over like he was some kind of pitiable freak.  Hoping she wouldn’t notice, he ran his thumbs over his fingertips, just in case, but all he found were his normal, blunt fingers.  _ Thank God. _

“Doctor?” he said, with as much calm as he could muster.

“I suspect the stress of the job may be getting to you,” Moira replied after a moment.  “Perhaps you should take a little time off.”

“A vacation won’t solve this, O’Deorain,” Gabriel hissed back, but Moira was unmoved.

“Perhaps not, no, but I think a vacation may help you keep your anger at bay while I work out a solution to your . . . problem.”

She wasn’t wrong; as he was, Gabriel was clearly unfit to work.  But nor did he like it. Moira was skilled, and Moira was industrious, but Moira didn’t know what she was doing.  How could she? This was new technology - hell, this was a new side effect of said technology. 

He didn’t want to wait for Moira to sort out her shit (however long that would take), and he sure as hell didn’t want to drag his mistakes into his home life.  

_ Jack . . . _

Now there was a thought.  He had a logical, if not horrifying reason for wanting to destroy Moira in any number of increasingly gruesome ways.  But how long would logic remain with him? How long would it be until he didn’t need a reason to kill someone. How long would it be until he could no longer distinguish between his enemies and his loved ones?  The notion of leaving his unpredictable self at home, where his primary human contact would be the one person he wanted to keep safe the most, left him wildly uneasy.

_ Jack can’t know. _

On the other hand, did he really have a choice?  The alternatives were do nothing and let the side effects of Moira’s quest for scientific enlightenment continue to present themselves in terrifying ways, or lock himself up - but that would come with paperwork, and prying questions that may well lead to a complete shutdown of Blackwatch, something which Gabriel could not allow.

Vacation it was.

“Right, fine,” he muttered, defeated.  “Guess I got my doctor’s note and everything.  Probably for the best.”

“I’m glad you agree.”  Her tone was even, but she had taken the chance to rub at her throat, a momentary show of weakness.

_ Fuck.  I did that. _

Gabriel backed away, eager to put as much distance between the two of them as they could.  “You aren’t gonna be needing me for any . . . tests, or what-have-you?”

She hesitated, as though debating the matter in her mind.  “I’ll call you if I need anything.”

“Good,” said Gabriel.  Truth be told, he didn’t want to run any more tests, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be alone in a room with Moira again at any point in the foreseeable future, a desire that was almost certainly mutual.  “I’ll clear my schedule for the week, but I want you to let me know the moment you find out anything - I don’t care how small. Got it?”

“Of course.”

Despite the confidence Moira exuded, Gabriel couldn’t help but leave her office with a great sense of foreboding hanging over him.  Without a doubt, this would only be the beginning of his . . . troubles. The question was, could he still be saved?


End file.
